


Chosen

by Merit



Category: The Divine Cities Series - Robert Jackson Bennett
Genre: Between City of Blades and City of Miracles, Gen, Interlude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 11:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11919942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/pseuds/Merit
Summary: She was still Prime Minister.





	Chosen

**Author's Note:**

> Originally comment fic - now somewhat expanded.

The night after Shara called the election, parliament erupting in fury that she had dared have an early election, dared to choose her own ending, she went for a walk in the gardens next to the prime minister's residence. The opposition, members of her own party, had scattered after she had exited parliament. The silence from friends would have stung, if Shara hadn't burned so many bridges. Instead, she smiled wryly, her back aching, her eyes sore. Age was finally catching up to her.

This late at night the birds had long gone to sleep, only movement in the night sky the rattling of bats across the stars and moon. She sat on a bench, staring distantly, nails digging into the soft flesh of her hands.

Her heart was racing.  
  
“Worrying, are you?”  
  
Shara started. But before she had already turned to face her visitor, she had a few suspicions on who it could be.  
  


  1.  Assassins. Oh they thought she didn't know about the assassins? Her guards had foiled three attempts in the last six months.
  2. One of her guards, deciding to break tradition and actually speak to her informally. Shara thought this unlikely.
  3. A mystery third guest.



  
Olvos smiled at her winningly. A mystery third guest it was, Shara thought. She got to her feet, waving to the bench. When Olvos had sat down, Shara sunk back to her seat, groaning slightly at the hard stone.   
  
“Oh just about the future and my legacy,” Shara said, shrugging, tapping a pattern against her thigh. “Idle thoughts. I'm trying to get Turyin to be the next Prime Minister but it may be more difficult than I would hope. Not the least because Tuyrin seems to have _opinions_ about being a politician. But after her? Too many possibilities.”  
  
Olvos nodded. “There's always a thousand thousand possibilities,” she said, in the grand tone of a goddess who could possibly see them all. “Saypur doesn't always throw off their shackles,” she said and the earth in front of them shifted and changed. Buildings vanished, replaced by Continental wonders, stretching up like swords, tearing at Saypuri skies. Trees shrank and twisted, great white paving stones spread out before their feet. Shara looked up and the night sky unfolded like a flower, revealing brilliant blue, the sun a bright orb in the sky.

It was beautiful and it was horrific.  
  
And in front of her – wretched misery. Shara's stomach twisted as she saw her country men and women, clad in naught but rags, scramble and bend after tall white figures.

She stood, legs shaky beneath her. The sun glared impossibly bright down on her black hair. Olvos followed, quiet, but something grim in her shoulders, the line of her mouth. Little puffs of dust lit up when they stepped forward, great white paving stones longer than a man stretching out in front of them. It was a great courtyard, Continentals wandering about like they owned the place.

Because they did.

“This could have been my life,” Shara said softly. She pushed her glasses up her nose, blinking away tears. “I never would have gone to university, never would have gone to the Continent.”  
  
“You're never born here, of course,” Olvos murmured, watching Shara's face very carefully. “Jukov and I never have that tryst that led to our poor daughter crossing the seas.”  
  
“You – you don't approve of me adopting Tatyana?”  
  
“She would have shriveled over there, a flower cut too short,” Olvos said.  
  
“No one wanted me to do it. My aides had to be very creative bringing her to Saypur. My policies are very unpopular at home and on the Continent. I'm sure I would have been accused of kidnapping a poor Continental girl,” Shara said dryly, shaking her head.  
  
“But they won't be your policies for much longer, will they?”  
  
“No,” Shara said, “They'll become Turyin's and she'll change things.” Shara let the tears tip over, down her cheeks, staring up at the false sun in the sky. A Continental man walked through her, brusquely talking to a bowing Saypuri woman, her neck bent an impossible, uncomfortable angle. The words seemed to come from far away, talking about shipments, about mothers weeping over lost children.  
  
Darkness crept over the sky, stars erupting in the inky black. Trees grew and the Continental style buildings vanished. They had never suited a Saypuri climate, Shara thought, wiping away at the salty tears.   
  
“I heard you're planning on going to a country estate?” Olvos said and then waited as Shara shrugged off the decades old grief over a thousand years of injustice. Shara took a deep breath, composing herself. The debate in parliament, the names she had been called, perhaps it had cut deeper than she had cared to admit.  
  
“I'll be a hermit,” Shara said. “It used to be a family estate. When there used to be more of the family. Vinya used to hold great balls and hush-hush meetings when I was a child. But those sort of things generally fell out of fashion by the time I was an adult. I suspect no one will want to ruin their reputation and visit me,” Shara said, sounding almost gleeful. Finally she'd have time to catch on her books! There had been so many interesting publications about the Continent these past few years, a culture largely fostered by herself, but now she could reap the rewards.  
  
Olvos nodded her head.  
  
“And your plans for Tatyana?”  
  
“I was going to teach her everything I knew. That was my first thought,” and Shara met Olvos' gaze. The goddess at once more real than anything Shara had seen before, even the Jukov-Kolkan monstrosity, and somehow almost insubstantial. The stars and sun stared back at her. “She won't need that, hopefully. I've decided she can learn what she wishes.”

The goddess smiled.  
  
And Olvos didn't disappear as such, but suddenly she wasn't quite as substantial, ferns visible through her chest and when Shara blinked, she was gone entirely.  
  
“Prime Minister?” Called one of her guards.  
  
It was either that or an overly polite assassin.  
  
Shara got to her feet, back aching, but she had a duty and she wasn't going to give up now.

Not yet.


End file.
